In my seventh year I was in second grade.
One of the projects that were assigned to us
was to write a story about what ever caught our fancy.
I wrote about what I loved the most:
rocket ships!
It was not more than a few sentences,
but I developed bold illustrations
of a rocket with wings that flew to the stars.
So intrigued I was with this little fiction
I continued to draw and paint this space craft over and over.
At Christmas time of that year I took some of my drawings
to Santa Claus in a local Montgomery Ward
and presented him with my illustrations,
telling him I wanted a pin or perhaps a pendant of the design.
Covertly he passed them over to my parents.
At Christmas time I received two badges:
one of a sheriff and one of a fireman;
not the winged rocket I coveted.

The Winged Rocket

In that Spring I asked my Father
why Santa had not made the pendant or badge
and over a long conversation it became evident
Santa Claus was a fiction.
“However” he told me,
“each year we become Santa Claus:
He is the Spirit of Giving,
something we call into our hearts
and become for each other”.
I think that became the foundation of my spirituality:
to chose the very best spirit and call it into one’s self.

Years later I was attending Phil-Con,
one of the oldest of the Science Fiction Conventions in the world.
There great authors,
artists and media people gather
to present their work to the community.
That year I met a fellow who was intrigued with the art of Science Fiction
and became entranced with my jewelry.
Later in the convention his wife approached me
to ask if I could make a pendant to be given to him
as a Christmas Present.
When she gave the the image of the piece
I nearly wept with joy;
it was the old style Winged Rocket of the fifties,
almost exactly like my crude drawing of the second grade.
On the day I mailed the finished pendant to her
for their Christmas celebration,
I found myself choked up on my return drive home from the Post Office.
Like I was seven years old again:
I went from a child who wanted Santa to create something special for me
to being Santa Claus
and making the very piece I craved as a child.
It was at that moment I realized I was doing exactly what I needed to do in my life:
participate in the Spirit of Giving